


wounds of war

by Grahm_Crackle



Category: Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: Escape, Escapes, Mother-daughter time, Torture, What Did She Do To Deserve This?, carmen mom, kidnaping, kidnaping escape, no beta we die like women, poor carmen, vera cruz - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-24
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22384438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grahm_Crackle/pseuds/Grahm_Crackle
Summary: Carmen is captured by VILE and tortured. But, she's rescued by a figure from her past, one she thought she's never see again.Meanwhile, Julia, Zari, and Chase investigate what happened to the little thief. It isn't long before they meet carmen's team, just as desperate as them.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 114





	1. Chapter 1

Her wrists ached.  
Too weak to stand, she’d been hung by them, so they could reinforce the idea that she was their property now. She belonged to them… they could do whatever they wanted to her… no one would care.  
No one cares about a thief, do they? No one was coming to save her. She was all alone. No one.  
“Hopeless, aren't you?”  
She looked up, catching Tigress’s eyes with hers. She opened her mouth to reply, but all that came out was a croak.  
“Don’t try, Black Sheep.” she laughed.  
The VILE agent lifted her chin, dragging her claws into her cheeks. Carmen could feel the blood on her face. “We missed you. We missed you when you were still Black Sheep.”  
“Nothing… Nothing excuses murder…” she grit out, her throat screaming, “I’m not- i’m not-”  
Her voice broke, and she turned her head away.  
“We can make this stop, just fold.” She whispered in her ear.  
Carmen would have lied if she said that he didn’t consider it. Broken fingers, torn coating that barely hung on her body, a stomach empty and begging for food.  
At this point she wished they’d just kill her and get it done.  
No one was going to come save her, and she hated this torture. She wanted to kill herself, but they didn’t let her. They left her chained all the time, and if she tried, she would wake up in an infirmary, strapped down.  
They’d wait for her to heal then chain her again. She couldn’t pick the lock with her swollen and broken fingers. Her hands ached agonizingly, but there was nothing she could do about it.  
Carmen shook her head, to weak to even say a single world. She would neve fold. Never, no matter what.  
“I’m sorry.” Tigress said, “This could have ended.”  
The VILE agent whipped around, slashing her claws into Carmen’s side. Blood drooled down her side. She cried out, but her voice was hardly audible.  
“Feel better? this can all end.” She clenched her fingers inside of the wound. The two were both upright, Tigress holding Carmen in a sick and painful hug. The claws were inside her gut, deep and painful.  
“Tigress, we need her alive.” Dr. Bellum walked in, “for the moment.”  
“Sorry Bellum.” She removed her hand.  
But, Carmen was unconscious.


	2. Chapter 2

Carmen cried out.  
The man holding the crackle stick jabbed it into her ribs again.   
“Just tell us where you and your team stay.” Maelstrom demanded, watching as the henchman removed the weapon. Carmen panted, trying to bring her breath back to her lungs.   
Man, that hurt.  
“I’m not telling you anything.” She choked out.   
She hardly got the words out before the man shoved the weapon against her ribs, sending electricity her body, and she screamed in pain. She convulsed, jerking in her chains. When he finally removed it, she was left coughing and bleeding from her nose.  
“It’s all you have to do. Just tell us, please.” Maelstrom sighed.   
She shook her head and braced for the shock. She heard a slight click, and there was jabbed against her ribs again.   
Oh goodness, it hurt.   
He’d turned up the power, and didn’t move it quickly. She cried out in pain, and when he removed it, there was an ugly burn.   
“You’re doing this to yourself!” Maelstrom hissed, and leaned down. He grabbed her face in his hands and twisted her neck, forcing her to stare into his eyes. “You can make this stop.”   
She replied by spitting in his face.   
He wiped the moisture from his cheek, startled by her insolence. She smirked, but her smugness was short lived, when he slapped her. Her neck snapped to the side, and the entire right side of her face was burning.   
“Know your place, girl.” He growled.   
She growled, her heart pounding. She hated him, and he hated this. She hated the pain and the slaps and the electric shocks. No one was coming for her, and she hated that. She hated being alone.   
“Come on, girl, just tell us what we want to know. Your handler, your base, your teammates, or where you get your gadgets.” Maelstrom reminded her.   
“You’re not getting anything.” She growled.   
The crackle rod was jammed into her ribs again, twisting against the burn already there. She was crying in pain, screaming. “STOP!”   
“Tell us what we want to know!”   
She cried in pain, screaming in anger. “PLEASE!”   
“I told you what you had to do to make it stop.” Maelstrom sighed.   
She writhed, resisting convulsions that wanted to wrack her body. “PLEASE, PLEASE STOP!”   
“Stop.”  
The rod was removed, and she panted, gasping for air. She hated him. Why didn’t he seem bothered by how much pain she was in? Why didn’t he care that she was in so much pain?   
“Just kill me.” she whispered.   
“You’re not dying until you are on your knees and begging me for death.” he hissed.   
“Maelstrom.”   
He whipped around, seeing Roundabout in the entrance to the cell.   
“What is it?” he growled.   
“Someone has broken into the base.” he explained.   
“Who?”   
“You-know-who.”   
Maelstrom groaned and turned to the man holding the crackle rod. “Gag her, and keep an eye on her.”   
The man nodded, and the two faculty members left.


	3. chapter 3

Came shifted, doing her best to get comfortable in her bonds. Wrists bound behind her and her legs bound together. A gag forced into her mouth.   
“Hurry up.” she heard the voice from outside of the door.  
The cell’s door slid open, and the cleaners walked inside. The men stormed over, one grabbing her.  
The other took grip on her arm and jammed a syringe into it, pushing the plunger down. It only took moments before she began to feel woozy- awake, but not able to move or think clearly.   
One of them picked her up in his arms, and carried her out of the cell.  
She was taken out of the base, and tossed in the back seat of a car. One of them slipped a blindfold over her eyes.   
“Clear.”   
Carmen flinched at the noise, her head spinning as it was.   
She felt the car start, and the reality set on her.   
They were moving her- they were taking her somewhere else- they might even kill her!   
She trashed for a few moments, stopping when she felt the burn on her side split open. She screamed in pain under the gag. She felt the car be stopped.   
“She’s bleeding badly.” One of the cleaner’s voices sighed.   
“Take care of it.”  
Carmen felt some kind of plastic underneath her, and a foam block under her back where the wound was located. There was a piece of cloth pressed to it, dabbing up the blood.   
And suddenly, there was a crash. Carmen felt her body be swooped upright, the wound screaming. She suddenly felt two fingers drive into the wound.   
“Put the gun down.”  
She felt the fingers drive further into the wound, and let out a pained scream.  
There was another bang, and she was dropped, feeling her head spinning. The pain was almost shocking, but she felt a pair of hands rip the blindfold and gag off of her. She saw the cleaner who’d been holding her with a bullet in her leg- but quickly blacked out.


	4. chapter four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, sorry this took so long. I was busy...  
> NVM I got no excuses.  
> anyways, don't kill me, and thank you so much for all of the support this has gotten!

Carmen stirred, shaking. She felt cold water below her. Someone was touching her burn, shooting pain into her ribs.   
“Stop!”  
“Shh… I’m not with them. I’m trying to help you. You’re gonna be ok.”   
“I’m cold.”   
“You’re in shallow water, to make cleaning up the blood easier for me.”  
Carmen didn’t know who the voice was, but somehow, she trusted it, and wasn’t afraid of the hands stroking her hair. They were gentle, and her voice filled with kindness and concern. Even a small amount of it, to her, meant more then she could ever say at the moment. She had only received hits and burns and hunger for the last months.   
“Who are you?”  
“Someone who wants you to be safe, little pup.”   
“What?”  
“Done. your burn is stitched up. Do you have any other wounds that would need stitches? Other then the ones tigress gave you, I delt with those first.”  
“I don’t know.”  
“I’d assume you just hurt all over?”  
“Yes.”  
“You need to sleep. Drink this.”  
Carmen felt a cup be placed against her lips, and downed the liquid, the pain almost instantly fading to a buzzing, and her vision followed, turning black.

When Carmen next woke, she was in a bed. The possess was slow, as she faded in and out, until finally coming fully around. It was then that panic set in. Whoever’d saved her could only want to do worse things to her: it seemed like the whole world was hunting her at times.   
She stood up, her legs shaking, and her body weak.   
For a moment she noticed that the tatters that she’d been wearing were gone, replaced by flowy and soft pajama pants, and a tank top. She looked around, opening the door, seeing a small hallway, one letting out into a living room.   
“You’re awake.”  
She turned to see the woman behind her. She was slightly taller then carmen herself, but much older. She had hair cropped short, the same auburn born of her own, but lightened by lines of gray running through it. Her eyes were a pale blue, and her skin was brown, just like Carmen’s own.  
“Yeah… yeah, I am. Who are you? Where am i?” Carmen took a few steps back, trying to get a safe distance away from the woman.   
“Good. You’re in Hawaii, and as for who I am, you might wanna sit down.”   
“I’ll keep standing, thank you.” Carmen said snappishly.   
“Listen, Isla, i know how afraid you are. I know that they hurt you so much, but you can trust me.”  
“How can i trust you? I don’t know you. And… what did you call me?”  
“Isla. Your name. Because I’m not calling you by that stupid monaker that’s splashed all over the headlines!” She hissed, crossing Her arms.   
“Really? Because I do not have a name. Not one other than Carmen sandiego, but i would very much like to know yours”   
“Fine. Vera. Vera cruz.”   
Carmen’s eyes went wide.   
“mom?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you all enjoy!

Julia stared at the files and felt her eyes well up with tears.  
“I know it’s hard, but it’s been a year now. You need to accept it.”  
How could she?   
How could she accept that Carmen: The strange beautiful woman, a hero, and a kind humanitarian was just gone?   
The night they’d last seen each other seemed so long ago.   
Julia had been on a mission, with Zari, when she saw her.   
The theif, the warrior. The beauty, the vixen. The hero, the villain: whatever you wanted to call her.   
She’d been running, panting as two league operatives bore down on her.   
Julia had shouted a warning, and Carmen ducked just in time as not to have her throat slit by a garotte wire.  
But, that moment it took to dive was enough.   
One of the operatives seized her by her arms, pinning them behind her, and shoving her to the ground.   
Julia lept from where she hid, running toward her downed friend.   
“Carmen!”   
“NO! Julia! Get out!”  
There was something in her voice. Panic. She was afraid, likely for Julia’s life as well as her own.   
“Agent argent, report in!”  
“Zari, vile has Carmen!”   
“She works for them!”   
“No, she doesn't”  
“Julia, go!”   
The conflicting yells were in her head, panic rushing over her as she turned and ran.  
BAck to the present, she shivered, looking at the papers before her.   
They stated, clearly, that Carmen was now MIA, and assumed dead. hHOw there was no longer any chance that she remained living. One year missing after a witnessed violent kidnaping… how could she have survived?  
She knew that it was true. She knew that her friend was dead, but how could she just accept that? How?   
Carmen had been a wild, free creature, one who would neer let herself be penned into a cell or beaten into submission.   
And now she was gone.  
Gone, because of a stupid group of greedy people who decided she wasn’t allowed to live. How could Julia understand or accept that.   
But, she knew she had to…  
Once someone was gone, dead, they’d never come back.   
JUlia hated it. She knew that no one would cry for carmen: for her friend when she was laid down to sleep.   
After a moment, and a whimper, she nodded, and signed the paper.  
“Gone. Just like that.” Zari said, almost happy.   
JUlia hated it.


End file.
